Pensioner saved
after falling into
deep rock pool

Brenda & John Freeman

A GRATEFUL pensioner who collapsed in a rock pool while shrimping at Cooden Beach has thanked emergency services and the man who rescued him for saving his life.

John Freeman, 68, originally from Little Common, now lives with wife Brenda in Polegate.

He regularly returns to the local area to fish and last Tuesday (May 8) got up at 6.30am and made his way to his favourite stretch of beach at Herbrand Walk.

John, who has been fishing since he was seven-years-old, said the weather was good, he felt ‘quite exhilarated’ and had been ‘shrimping away’ when, without warning fell face down into a deep rock pool.

He said the incident was a surreal experience.

“I came out of one rock pool to go into another. I then realised I was going down into it head first and there was nothing I could do to stop myself. Everything was in slow motion.

“I was then under water and although I could move my arms my hands would not grip and I had no strength to pull myself out.”

Though that was the last thing John remembered until he came round 20 minutes later, he had succeeded in turning himself over and was face up. John was spotted flailing around by Peter Hicks, who was digging for lugworms nearby.

Realising John was in distress, he dashed over to help. Peter found John unconscious in the rock pool with water lapping over his face. He tried to pull him out but John’s water-logged fishing gear weighed him down, hindering the rescue attempt.

Speaking about the drama last week Peter said, “He was dressed in chest waders and was a big man, and it took all my strength to drag him out.

“I sprained a thumb in the process.”

After pulling John clear of the water Mr Hicks flagged down a passing motorist and emergency services were alerted.

John said, “Next thing I know I’m on my back on the sand and the paramedics and police were looking after me.” John was rushed to the Conquest Hospital.

Meanwhile at around 8am Bexhill police rang Brenda to tell her what had happened to her husband.

Brenda is recovering from major surgery and was distressed because she had no way of getting to the Conquest, but police came to her rescue and sent a patrol car to take her to be by John’s side.

Brenda, who often accompanies John on his shrimping expeditions, said, “I was really grateful.”

John said he was well looked after at the hospital.

“They ran every test you could think of but couldn’t find anything wrong.

“I was frozen and treated for hypothermia.”

He spent around five hours being warmed on a special air treatment bed and was discharged later that day.

Medical experts could find no explanation for the blackout but John said he will be seeing his GP in the near future.

John said, “I would like to send my grateful thanks to Peter Hicks who dragged me out of the sea and kept watch over me until the emergency services arrived.

“I also wish to thank the emergency services for their quick response in bringing me back to life and getting me to the hospital where the resus unit staff continued to look after me and brought me back to good health.

“Also, thanks to Bexhill Police for their help and support.”

When asked if the incident had put him off shrimping John said, “Good heavens no!

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Eastbourne Herald provides news, events and sport features from the Eastbourne area. For the best up to date information relating to Eastbourne and the surrounding areas visit us at Eastbourne Herald regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Eastbourne Herald requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.